Meanwhile, we’re investigating the possibility of attending Steamcon this November; we’re still building up our funds for the trip, but if all goes well, we’ll be there–hopefully with a large collection of books on hand to sell and distribute!

Remember–if there’s any reason you want to get in contact with us, you can always email us at the address on our about page, or use the form on our main site. Thanks for your support!

We’re now offering the book as a free *.pdf download here; alternatively, feel free to download one act at a time–Act 1, Act 2, and Act 3. If you download the book, we ask that you either consider making a small donation or purchase a physical copy–it’s only with your support that we can go on producing books and continuing Arcadia’s tale. Also, remember that the book is available under the attribution-non-commercial-share alike clause of Creative Commons–this means that you can edit it, produce fan-fiction for it, and distribute it to your hearts content, so long as you do so under the exact same clause–and give credit to the original author. Tod Wills’ artwork is available under the attribution-non-commercial-non-derivative license–which means you are free to share it, but not alter it.

Work is moving on the second book, Arcadia Snips and the Clockwork Heart; we can’t tell you much, except that Arcadia Snips will return and most probably interact with a clockwork heart. Keep an eye on this space for more information!

Finally, we appreciate the support of everyone who’s made producing–marketing–and publishing this book possible. Thanks to Tod Wills, our artist; thanks to Self Publishing, Inc, our printer; thanks to our family, our friends, and everyone who bought the book and who might buy the book in the future. Speaking of buying the book–we’re still offering printed versions for purchase, and we encourage you to buy them both as a way of having the book on hand and as supporting the production of the second book. We won’t be able to produce the second book without selling enough copies of the first; if you enjoyed the first book, please consider buying a physical copy. Thanks for your patronage!

EPILOGUE: IN WHICH THESE MATTERS ARE AT LAST BROUGHT TO A TEMPORARY CLOSE

     More astute members of the audience (an esteemed group to which you, dear reader, undoubtedly belong) may have noticed that until this point, we have talked much about Count Orwick’s nature but little of his appearance. This is not without reason.
     Count Vladimere von Orwick was a scoundrel.
     He was a creature of such abhorrent character that, for fear of your health, our censorous editors have banned us from describing him to you. We cannot write a word of his nose (which had caused several persons of weaker constitutions to faint), nor spend a moment dallying upon his eyes (which were under investigation for their involvement in the tragic death of Mr. Penrose). We have been forbidden from so much as even mentioning his mouth (beyond, of course, noting that we shan’t mention it).
     So when called upon to imagine Count Orwick, we ask you to think instead of an innocent and helpless fruit. In particular, a deliciously ripe, juicy orange—with skin that parts beneath your fingers, sliding away like frost from a window on the first day of spring.
     It was an orange that Count Orwick now worked upon, peeling it with great relish. Miss Primrose could not prevent herself from shifting uncomfortably in her chair; the Count had a way of making you pity his breakfast.
     ”A clever trick,” Count Orwick observed, finishing the orange with calm delight. “Disabling the calculation engines to prevent them from resetting.”
     ”Mr. Daffodil was instrumental in both the realization and execution of the plan,” Miss Primrose explained. “I have requested in my report that he be recognized for—”
     ”Done,” Count Orwick said, waving his hand dismissively. “Mr. Daffodil will be taking over the Steamwork, filling in for the now-deceased Mr. Eddington. He will be instituting the very same plan that Mr. Copper had proposed—wiring all calculation engines together so we may prevent these sort of financial disasters in the future.”
     ”That brings me no small degree of comfort.”
     ”Of course. The next order of business, please.”
     ”Just a matter of clarification,” Miss Primrose said. “We wanted to know exactly where you were during these recent, ah, events.”
     ”Mr. Peabody foresaw my interference and sought to eliminate me as a potential threat. He poisoned me shortly before launching his insidious plan’s final stroke,” Count Orwick said.
     ”You were poisoned?” Miss Primrose said. “But then, how did you—”
     ”Poison is a regular occupational hazard in my profession. I carry several different antidotes on my person at all times,” Orwick said. “It was a simple matter to ferret out which poison Mr. Peabody had employed. Although he had done well to hide his true loyalties from me, I knew him enough to realize he would choose his instrument of murder on the basis of absurd irony.”
     ”He poisoned you with hemlock,” Miss Primrose said.
     Orwick’s smile grew several sizes larger. “Indeed.”
     ”But, ah,” Miss Primrose said, hesitating. “Sir, there is no cure for hemlock.”
     ”Oh, yes,” Count Orwick agreed. “That is what those botany books say, isn’t it?”
     Miss Primrose fell silent for quite a while.
     ”If that is all, Miss Primrose—your check is, as they say, in the mail.”
     ”That’s it, then?”
     ”There is still the matter of Mr. Peabody’s accomplices, and the matter of Professor Hemlock himself, as well as the damage this whole affair has done to our already lagging economy—but yes, Miss Primrose. As far as you are concerned, that is ‘it’.” Orwick paused, then added with a wickedly gleeful smile: “Unless, of course, I could interest you in a job. Mr. Peabody did leave a rather unfortunate vacancy.”
     The speed with which Miss Primrose left Count Orwick’s room could not be described with any term besides legendary.

     Snips waited for her outside of Count Orwick’s office. Above them, the morning airships swept up into the sky to peddle their wares. Below, marketplaces buzzed with life; steam-driven devices hummed as they trudged down the streets. Over, under, and through it all, the trains began to move—pumping equal parts prosperity and corruption through the city’s brass-lined veins.
     Miss Primrose noticed a growing pile of discarded bandages at Snips’ feet. The thief was unraveling the wrappings that Orwick’s men had put on her.
     ”That is not particularly wise, Miss Snips.”
     ”Probably not.”
     Miss Primrose stepped forward. Rather than press on with her complaint, she thought it over, and reached to up to unwind the bandage that had been placed over her own forehead.
     ”Count Orwick could likely have been convinced to grant you some manner of reward,” Miss Primrose said as she folded the bandage up. “You have gone above and beyond the call of duty, Miss Snips. Perhaps you should seek audience with him.”
     ”I don’t want to encourage him,” Snips said. “I hate his type. He wants to control everything. Maybe he’s the best person for the job; maybe he should control everything. But it still ticks me off.”
     ”Hm. I think that I might be starting to understand your point of view,” Miss Primrose admitted.
     Snips sighed. “Listen—don’t get any wrong ideas. It was fun, but I just wanted to get that devil off my back.”
     ”I see. I imagine, then, that you would never consider coming to work with me.”
     Snips looked at Miss Primrose. “Huh?”
     ”I’ve begun to think that the Watts Detective Agency could do with a little illegitimacy,” Miss Primrose admitted. And then she waggled her eyebrows.
     ”You’re—are you serious?”
     ”Quite.”
     Snips laughed. “One condition.”
     ”Name it, Miss Snips.”
     ”No more ‘Miss’. Just Snips.”
     ”As you wish, Snips.” Miss Primrose said. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
     ”Yeah,” Snips said. “I’ve got an appointment with a mummy.” She made a face.

     William stared with slack-jawed shock at the smoldering wreckage of Napsbury Asylum.
     A hole had been torn through the side of the facility; behind it lay a rubble-strewn path occasionally interrupted either by a bruised and groaning asylum inmate or a dazed looking feline dressed in smart formal attire.
     William followed the path for as long as he dared; when he realized where it was going, he turned and hunted down the first doctor he could find.
     ”My grandmother,” he said, pinning an elderly physician to the wall. “What did she do?!”
     ”D-Daffodil?” the gentleman stammered, wheezing. “We couldn’t stop her! She was like—she was a demon! She was atop of some monstrous, mechanical thing—”
     ”But that’s impossible,” William said. “How could she have powered it?! There’s nothing here to run a machine on—nothing but potatoes and—”
     He cut himself off as he felt something brush up against his feet. Looking down, he caught sight of Mr. Snugglewuggums; the feline in the tophat and monocle busily purred and shoved his face against William’s ankle.
     It was then that William noticed the smell of singed fur mixed with fried potatoes. He reached down and touched Mr. Snugglewuggums’ head. Immediately, a burst of electricity crackled up from between the cat’s ears, shocking William’s fingertip.
     ”It couldn’t be,” William said. “She couldn’t have—”
     Sensing his distraction, the doctor used the moment to slip away from William. Rather than pursue the man and continue with his interrogation, William turned back toward the path of destruction and followed it to its source. When he arrived at his grandmother’s room, he found the blueprints for the machine underneath her pillow.
     The paper described an immense ambulatory engine powered on one side by a cauldron of potatoes and on the other side by a barrel full of static-generating cats. A stick-figured version of Mrs. Daffodil sat at the engine’s helm, beside what William assumed was Mr. Brown and Mr. Wanewright.
     Mr. Snugglewuggum meowed. William carefully folded up the designs and placed them in his pocket, then reached down and pulled the cat up into his arms. As he carried the feline to the door, William started to twitch.
     By the time he left the room, the twitch had become a spasm; by the time he reached the asylum’s exit, the spasm had become a giggle.
     By the time he was walking down the street, the giggle had become a genuine mad cackle.

     ”He has been expecting you,” Starkweather said, leading Snips into Nigel’s study.
     ”I bet he has,” Snips replied.
     Starkweather waited by the door until Nigel waved him away.
     ”Can I help you, Arcadia?” Nigel asked, pressing his bandage-wrapped hands together.
     ”You already did.”
     ”I beg your pardon?”
     ”You meddled,” Snips said, her voice like a frost drenched dagger.
     Nigel spoke slowly, choosing his words with care. “And exactly how did you reach that conclusion…?”
     ”Peabody. Even if he hadn’t said what he did, there was no reason for him to keep me alive back on the train. Not unless you cut him a deal.”
     ”I see. And what if I did? My actions may have saved your life.”
     ”Maybe,” Snips said. “No, not maybe. Definitely.”
     ”And so you came here to reprimand me, then? For ‘meddling’?”
     ”No,” Snips said, her eyes drifting to the jars that lined the shelves of his study—as if the answers to her questions could be found among the preserved remains of extinct species. “No, I didn’t come here to reprimand you. But I didn’t come here to thank you, either. I’m not sure what I came here for. I just wanted you to know that I know. And that it doesn’t change anything.”
     ”Why would I think otherwise?”
     ”I don’t know,” Snips said, shaking her head. “Look, what do you want from me? Do you want me to to forgive you? On behalf of the thousands upon thousands you’ve killed? Do you want me to give you a big, warm hug? Put on a dress, act like a ‘good daughter’? Do you want me to come back home?”
     ”Are any of those things on the table, Arcadia?”
     ”No,” she said, and there was a murderous force behind the word. “No. None of those things are on the table.”
     ”Good,” Nigel said.
     ”Good?”
     ”Good,” he repeated. “As for your question, I will answer it, in exchange for you answering one of my own.”
     Snips glared, but nodded. “Go ahead.”
     ”Why do you hate me?”
     ”You’re a murderer.”
     Nigel snorted. “Have I killed anyone you knew? Have I killed someone close to you? Your hatred is far too intimate for the callous scorn we heap upon killers and tyrants.”
     Snips shook her head. “Do you know what it was like, growing up and admiring you? Reading the articles about all the wonderful things you’d done, the wonderful things you built? Hearing all the stories? Wanting to be like you?”
     Nigel grew silent.
     ”And then do you know what happened, Nigel? I ran away to find you. I ran away to meet the man I had read about in newspapers and scientific journals; I ran away to find the kindly, brilliant philanthropist. And do you know what I found?”
     Nigel turned his head away.
     ”I found a man who had murdered thousands in the name of moral righteousness. A man who cloaked himself in shadows and secrets; who manipulated others as if they were mere tokens in a grand game. I went out to find my father. Instead, I found you.”
     ”And that’s why I hate you, Nigel. Maybe it’s spiteful. Maybe it’s unfair. But I really don’t care. I hate you because you aren’t the man you were supposed to be.”
     ”And so that’s what all this is about?” Nigel asked, turning back to Snips. “The cheap hat, the dirty coat, the silver tooth? Just a little girl rebelling against a father who failed to live up to her expectations?”
     Snips was upon him in an instant. Her hands seized either of his wrists, pinning them to the chair; Nigel writhed in pain, but did not cry out.
     ”You know that’s not what this is about,” Snips hissed, leaning forward into him. “You damn well know that.”
     ”Arcadia,” Nigel whimpered. “Pl-please—”
     Snips released him, stepping back. Nigel coughed, rubbing his wrists.
     ”What I did with my life has nothing to do with you, Nigel.”
     Nigel wheezed and straightened back in his chair, slowly recovering. “You answered my question, so I will answer yours. You wanted to know what I want. It is only this: For you to flourish.”
     ”Why?”
     ”Because you are my daughter.”
     ”No,” Snips replied. “I’m not your daughter. And you sure as hell aren’t my father.” She turned, moving toward the exit.
     ”Didn’t you hear? My father is dead. He died in a fire.”

     When she met him at the Steamwork, Snips insisted on going in first; William patiently waited outside of Mr. Eddington’s office until he heard her shout out to him.
     ”All right,” she told him. “Come on in.”
     When he stepped inside, he was confronted with the familiar scene of his previous employer’s belongings. But then he noticed that the bookcase on one side of the room had been shifted over, revealing a hidden passageway that dived deep into the Steamwork. Straightening with surprise, he crept forward and peeked down the stairway.
     Snips’ voice arose from below. “Come on, William,” she shouted. “I’m waiting.”
     William took the stairs one step at a time. As he did so, he felt his throat clench; he did not know why, but he felt as if he was on the verge of something familiar.
     The air was heavy and wet, ripe with age; whorls of dust were whipped up with every step. As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he heard a gentle click and electric hum; light after light flickered on, revealing to him a sprawling laboratory of marvels long lost to time.
     His mouth went dry.
     Snips stood behind one of the tables, smiling at him. For the first time that he had seen, she wore the expression without a hint of malice or contempt; it was the smile of someone who was sincerely happy.
     ”Welcome to your parents’ laboratory.”

     Starkweather dipped his hands in the basin, washing them clean of blood. His scarf had been removed, leaving the metal bolts in the side of his neck exposed.
     ”Fascinating,” Nigel spoke, leaning forward in his wheel chair to inspect the figure who lay upon the table. “The sheer number of his scars is daunting. And now his missing eye… No wonder the man sought to numb himself with drugs. He must be in constant physical pain.”
     ”I would not think you would find the matter of another’s scars to be fascinating,” Starkweather coldly rebuffed him, finishing his work at the sink. “In any matter, his wounds have been tended to, and the grafts completed. He will survive.”
     ”Yes, yes,” Nigel said, sounding distracted. The assassin was stretched across a slab of iron beneath the Arcanum estate, stripped of his clothing and eyepatch. His injuries had been grievious, but a quick intervention had brought him underneath the cryptozoologist’s care. “Your steady hands and my sharp mind have provided a second chance for our little friend.”
     ”I find it surprising that your minions managed to accomplish the task of bringing him here without incident,” Starkweather confessed. “So far, they have proven themselves otherwise incompetent.”
     ”I could not disagree more,” Nigel said. “Why, armed only with my instructions, Mr. Tongue and Mr. Cheek singlehandedly prevented the collapse of Aberwick’s banks while simultaneously maintaining their cover as instruments of Mr. Peabody and the Society.”
Starkweather raised an eyebrow, finishing at the sink. “Oh? And yet the newspapers report that it was Mr. Daffodil’s quick thinking that accomplished this task.”
     ”As it should be. I will allow the boy his well-deserved accolades; he provided a clever solution to a problem he was unaware had already been addressed,” Nigel said. “I knew of what the Society had planned for Aberwick’s financial district since I first investigated Hemlock’s mysterious attacks against the banks. I sent my dear creations out to each of the banks a day prior, placing account exploits of my own to counter Mr. Peabody’s.”
     Starkweather’s never-ending scowl only deepened. “Why did you not inform your daughter of this from the beginning? Why the duplicity?”
     ”If I had told her that I had plans to diffuse the situation, she would have left the matter alone,” Nigel said. “And if I had asked her to investigate it, she would have refused. Instead, I presented her with a mystery and allowed her to draw her own conclusion.”
     ”But why?”
     ”Because my daughter is immensely resourceful, and a clever investigator. She could discover something I had missed,” Nigel said. “And she did. I was unaware that Mr. Peabody had one of my bombs in his possession—never mind that the man was determined enough to attempt and use it.”
     ”Then I assume this matter is closed.”
     ”Not at all, my dear conscience. The account exploits used against the banks were Mr. Peabody’s creation, but if your fellow constructs are to be believed—and I am sure they are—he was working under the authority of Professor Hemlock, a man I know nothing of. And I assure you,” Nigel added, his voice growing dark, “that a man who can elude my eyes and ears is a dangerous man indeed.”
     ”You have defeated him, however. The bomb is lost,” Starkweather pointed out, “and the banks shall soon be rendered immune to attack. The Society can do nothing to bring Aberwick down.”
     ”There is still one bomb left.”
     ”Where? You built a third bomb?”
     ”In a manner of speaking,” Nigel said. “I built three devices in all; two after studying Jeremiah’s model, and one with his aid.”
     Starkweather stiffened. “William’s heart.”
     Nigel slowly nodded. “And that is why we must keep our eyes upon William and Arcadia. For if Hemlock still wishes to destroy the city of Aberwick—and I have every reason to believe he does—surely, he will seek out the clockwork heart.”

CHAPTER 30: IN WHICH OUR TITULAR PROTAGONIST FACES THE GRIM ANTAGONIST AND ATTEMPTS TO AVERT DISASTER, AND THE DAFFODIL SCION VISITS A PLACE LOST TO TIME

     Never before had Snips been more thankful for the feel of something solid against her feet.
     In the end, the only thing that saved her was a helping of raw, mad luck. Snips swooped between the airship and its balloon, her feet stumbling over the deck. She snapped the umbrella shut just as she slipped out of the rope, rolling to a halt.
     She straightened, rose, and turned.
     Mr. Peabody stared at her, wearing her hat on top his head.
     ”Has anyone ever told you that you are mad, Miss Snips?”
     ”Once or twice,” Snips said.
     ”Cease this absurdity,” he told her. “I’ve already seen to the collapse of Aberwick’s banks—you’re finished. There’s nothing left to accomplish.”
     ”Nothing’s finished,” Snips told him. “William figured out your plan on his own. He’s locked the banks down. No one will lose a penny.”
     Mr. Peabody was immediately seized by a paralyzing shock. “…what?”
     ”Yeah, you heard me,” Snips said, holding out her hand. “Now give me my hat. Before I come over and take it.”
     ”You are bluffing,” he said. “There is no way Daffodil could have shut down the calculation engines.”
     ”He entered an equation of his own. They’re down, Mr. Peabody. So sorry that we broke your master plan, but it was stupid. Deal with it. Hat, now.”
     Mr. Peabody’s eyes grew dark; his voice was infused with fearful trembling. “No—you idiots! Do you have any idea what you’ve done? What you’ve caused? This was the path of least harm! All the years I invested—to stem the loss of life that the alternative would bring about!”
     ”I’ve heard enough about your war,” Snips said.
     ”I’m not talking about the war,” Mr. Peabody snapped, and then he threw a switch.
     The airship shuddered; an ancient groan swelled up from its engine as beams of wood splintered. A thick gout of steam surged up through the cracks, engulfing the deck in a hot and choking fog. Snips coughed and threw herself to the floor. Mr. Peabody gripped the wheel and began to turn the ship back towards the center of Aberwick.
     ”Where are you doing?” Snips asked, fighting for breath through the dissolving cloud of steam.
     ”Back,” Mr. Peabody said. “Back to finish the job I started, in a way I prayed I never would have to.”
     Snips drew herself to her feet, realization hitting her. “You don’t mean—”
     ”Though we prefer the more subtle tools, the Society has never been above using violence to attain our ends,” Mr. Peabody shouted above the roar of engines. “Especially when the stakes are so extraordinarily high!”
     ”No!” Snips cried out. “You have no idea what the hell you’re doing!”
     ”I know precisely what I am doing,” Mr. Peabody said. “You have forced my hands, Miss Snips. I am left with no alternative. Arcanum’s device has already been activated.”
     Snips charged, but the ship was rocky; Mr. Peabody was able to intercept her while she was still wobbly on her feet. He struck her across the side of her head with the butt of his pistol, sending her down to the deck. Looming over her, he held the ship’s wheel in one hand and brought the barrel down to her temple with the other.
     ”For the war to stop, Aberwick must die, Miss Snips. Either by maths or by fire, it will not survive this night.”
     ”You don’t know what it can do,” she said. “No one does.”
     ”Tonight, we will find out,” Mr. Peabody said.
     ”I won’t let you—”
     ”So much as twitch and you’ll be dead,” he added. “Stand still, and I’ll allow you to behold the horror you have brought about.”
     ”If you think I’m just going to sit here, you’re sorely mistaken,” Snips hissed.
     Mr. Peabody’s eyes swept out to the city before him. “It does not matter. Nothing will save Aberwick. Not this time. No last second reprieve, no manna from heaven. No knight clad in vestments of white riding upon a valiant steed—”
     The roar of the second airship was deafening. Snips’ hat was thrown from Mr. Peabody’s head; he turned, staring at shock as the second compartment speared up through the air and slammed into the side of his ship, sending both he and Snips tumbling.
     Snips snatched the rim of her hat in one hand and drew her crowbar out from her belt with the other. When the ship righted itself, she leapt to her feet and brought the weapon down in a savage blow across Mr. Peabody’s wrist, forcing him to release the pistol.
     ”Tell me how to turn the bomb off!” Snips roared, kicking the pistol off the deck.
     Mr. Peabody stumbled back, nursing his injured wrist. “It can’t be deactivated,” he said, grinning. “Good day and good night, Miss Snips.”
     William sprang out from the second ship’s mast, leaping down to the deck where Snips now struggled with Mr. Peabody. Though the Society initiate was no stranger to violence, Snips had been trained to fight on the streets—she kicked, spat, and clawed, snarling like an unleashed wildcat. Mr. Peabody was forced back further and further.
     ”Miss Snips!” William cried out from the other side of the deck. “The whole ship’s shaking!”
     Snips turned; Mr. Peabody leapt at the opportunity and seized the crowbar in Snips’ grip. The two of them briefly struggled as the ship quivered beneath them. With a violent curse, Snips struck Mr. Peabody in the stomach with her knee, releasing the crowbar and shoving him off the ship’s back end. The Society initiate flailed as he was flipped over the railing, falling into the city below with Snips’ tool held in hand.
     She spat over the side after him. “Burn in hell.”
     ”Miss Snips!” William repeated, reaching her at last. “What on earth is happening?”
     Snips straightened and sighed. “It’s too late,” she said. “He activated the bomb.”
     ”The bomb?” William asked.
     ”It was what nearly destroyed the city over ten years ago,” Snips said. “A weapon to end all weapons. The Society’s first attempt to prevent the war—by annihilating an entire city.”
     ”My father’s experiment,” William said, aghast.
     ”No,” Snips corrected him. “My father.”
     William stared at her. “What—”
     ”He was one of the founding members of the Society, along with Professor Daffodil and your mother,” she told him. “Nigel tried to stop the war by destroying the city. Your parents stopped him.”
     William shook his head, finding himself confronted with more information than he could readily absorb. “How large will the explosion be?” he asked.
     ”I don’t know. No one does,” Snips said. “It just explodes, and explodes, and keeps exploding more, spreading out farther and farther—”
     ”How is such a diabolical engine even possible?”
     ”I don’t know,” Snips said. “I think someone in your family designed the original; Nigel stole the blueprints and built two of his own.” .
     ”But Miss Snips,” William said. “The last explosion didn’t destroy the city.”
     ”No,” Snips agreed. “Your parents stopped it, somehow. But I don’t know how.”
     ”But the Heap is still burning, is it not?”
     ”At the center,” Snips said. “The fire is still going on, and on. No one can even approach it without getting burnt—”
     ”Still exploding.”
     Snips paused. “What are you thinking?”
     ”Perhaps my parents found a way not to nullify the explosion, but to contain it. Perhaps if we take the airship there, we can do the same.”
     ”Better than nothing,” Snips said. “Do you know how to fly one of these things?”
     ”I was conceived in the belly of an armored dirigible,” William said. “I am familiar with its operation.”
     ”Then aim us for the Heap,” she told him.

     The center of the Heap was aglow in the mid-day; it still burned, tendrils of flame swelling out from a pillar of smoke. It resembled a tornado of fire and ash, writhing in endless hunger for more fuel.
     William finished the last adjustments to the airship’s controls, stepping back. “That’s it,” he told her. “It’s set to carry the ship straight into the heart of it. If my parents managed to contain the first explosion, it is reasonable to assume that their solution can contain a second.”
     ”We don’t even know how this works,” Snips said, watching the burning column.
     ”We have no alternatives, Miss Snips. If it doesn’t work, we shall soon know.” Despite himself, William snorted and shook his head; Snips looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
     ”Are you all right?”
     ”It just occurred to me,” he said, trying to stifle his laughter. “We’re on top of an armored dirigible, poised to rain down destruction on the city beneath me. I’m fairly sure I was determined to avoid this very sort of thing.”
     Snips slapped him on the back and handed him his umbrella.
     ”All right,” she said. “Go.”
     ”Funny,” William replied. “I don’t recall you having ever possessed the power of flight.”
     Snips glared.
     ”I mean, it certainly seems like something I’d remember,” William continued. “‘Oh yes, she can fly, silly me’. Or something like that.”
     ”I’m not going,” Snips said, turning back to the heart of the Heap.
     ”Yes, you are.”
     ”No, I’m not,” Snips said, shaking her head. “It’s too risky. If the ship doesn’t stay steady—if the winds pick up—if anything happens, it could shift the airship off and cause it to miss its target. Someone needs to stay and make sure it stays on course.”
     ”No, someone does not,” William said. “I did the math, Miss Snips. It will not miss.”
     ”You don’t know that.”
     ”I know it well enough.”
     ”There are too many lives at stake.”
     ”Stop trying to go out in a blaze of glory.”
     Snips stopped, her throat squeezing around her words. “I don’t need your help.”
     ”Then help me instead,” he told her. “For I have no intention of leaving this place without you, Arcadia.”
     She turned away from the Heap, facing William. And then, with a gradually melting reluctance, she placed her hand into his.

     Together, William and Snips floated above Aberwick. They clutched at one another desperately, holding on for dear life; beneath them, Mr. Peabody’s fiendish contraptions sank toward the swirling inferno that lay at the heart of the Heap.
     As they drifted, a cold stillness seized the air about them. William frowned; Snips shivered.
     ”Did the wind just stop?” she asked.
     ”I think so,” William said. “I think—I think it is about to happen again.”
     ”Huh? What’s going to happen again?”
     But William did not answer; instead, he searched the cityscape for the familiar face of a clock
     ”Why did everything get so quiet? I can’t even hear the wind. It’s like—” Snips stopped. They passed a sparrow, its wings spread; it was frozen stiff, hanging in the air like a Christmas ornament. “Uh.”
     ”You can see it,” William said. “Thank God. I thought I might be mad.”
     ”What the hell is happening?”
     William struggled to maintain his grip on Snips with one hand and pulled his pocket watch out with the other. He showed it to her; the second hand was stuck on six. “Time,” he said. “Time is—I think that it is trying to go backwards.”
     ”Wait, what?”
     ”I know that it sounds absurd,” William said. “But it has done this before. This is the third time—ever since this whole affair started. I think that—”
     The hand jumped back a second.
     ”That’s what happened last time,” William said.
     Then it jumped back another second.
     ”Er,” he said.
     And then it jumped back ten seconds.
     ”All right, this is new,” William admitted.
     The hand spun backwards, becoming no more than a blur; the minute hand stirred to life, cranking back the hour. And as they watched, the hour hand began to move.
     Above them, the sun slowly swung from one horizon to the next, its burning glow fading behind the city in an orange blossom of flame. Night came, then passed back into day; the sun now accelerated, blinking by in a streak of golden brilliance. Around them, buildings shrank and changed—blurring shapes of men speedily erected scaffolding, took down rooftops and walls, then pulled the scaffolding apart and left for home. Machines trudged back to their workshops to be disassembled, their parts distributed across the city; merchants traded money back for their goods. Muggers and thieves sprang out of alleyways to hand their victims bulging wallets at knife-point.
     In only minutes, days became weeks and weeks became months. They watched the ebb and flow of the city, traveling back to the final instants before the fire that devastated the Heap. Smoke was pulled from the sky and drawn in by flames that fell away, leaving the buildings pristine and untouched. The healing inferno crept to the center, back to where the explosion had first began—and then the world began to shiver and break.
     ”Hold on,” William said, but his voice was distant and warped; color bled out of everything, and the universe around them began to unravel, and then…
     He was standing on solid ground.
     The Heap was gone. In its place was a geometrical impossibility; a sight that defied everything that William understood about the world.
     Immense glaciers were suspended in a starless sky, the sound of crumbling ice surrounding him as they scraped across each other in a slow and graceful waltz. Beneath his feet was a layer of flattened frost; across from him was a bridge that lead to another glacier—and on top of it was a gazebo. Inside the gazebo was a chair and table, at which sat a man.
     The man was drinking tea.
     ”Snips?” William called out, but his voice was lost among howling winds and echoes of snapping ice. He turned about frantically, searching for any sign of her; every way he looked, there was nothing but frost. “Arcadia!”
     ”Relax,” the man in the gazebo said. “She’s fine.”
     William turned, pointing the tip of the umbrella at him. “Who are you? Where am I? What’s happened to the Heap—what’s happened to—”
     ”I fear that this is a bit complicated,” the man said, “and I am somewhat out of practice when it comes to complicated explanations.”
     William noticed now that the man was old and haggard; he wore a dusty suit and had a long, shaggy beard.
     ”All right,” William said. “If Snips is all right, where is she?”
     ”I think you mean when,” the man said.
     ”Now!” William cried.
     ”Precisely,” the man replied, and then he smiled. “Have a seat, William.”
William Daffodil visits a place lost to time.
     ”How do you know my name?”
     ”We’ve met before. Here.”
     ”No we haven’t!” William said. “I’ve never met you before in my life. I would certainly remember visiting such a strange, wretched place.” He waved his umbrella about.
     ”Well, you haven’t met me yet in your timeline,” the man said. “But we’ve met in mine. Here, anyway,” he added.
     ”What?”
     The old man sighed. “I said it was complicated. Sit down.”
     William relented, walking across the small bridge of ice. He used the umbrella as a cane, making sure not to trip on the slick ground; when he sat down, he was surprised to find that the tea was quite hot and accompanied by fresh, warm biscuits.
     ”Feel free to have one,” the old man said, but William only shook his head.
     ”I want to see Arcadia.”
     ”You will. In the meanwhile, please, relax. Let’s talk for a while. Although this is the first time you have met me, it will be the last time I see you. I would like to enjoy it, if I may.”
     William hesitated, then reached for one of the biscuits. He took it and tasted it; it was quite delicious. A moment after taking the bite, he ventured a question: “Where did you get this food? I do not see an oven…”
     ”You brought it to me,” the old man said, and William choked.
     ”Will you stop with that? It’s confusing,” William said. “I haven’t brought you anything.”
     ”You will,” the old man pointed out. “In your future, and my past. Like I said, it’s complicated.”
     William paused, half-eaten biscuit in hand. “Are you—are you—”
     ”Yes?”
     ”Are you my father?”
     The old man laughed. “Oh, goodness me, no. No, most certainly not.”
     William’s shoulders slumped. “Oh. I thought, perhaps—”
     ”I’m your grandfather. Jerome Daffodil.”
     William snapped to attention. “I—I’m sorry, I beg your pardon?”
     ”This place,” Jerome said, gesturing around him, “is a place outside of your timeline. Rather than traveling forward, it travels backward. For me, this is the last time we’ll meet; for you, it is our first time.”
     ”You’re saying—you’re saying I’ve been here before? In my future?”
     ”And in my past,” Jerome said, agreeing.
     ”Really, now,” William said, finishing the biscuit and dabbing his fingers on a napkin. “Are you the one responsible for that sordid business with the clocks?”
     ”Yes,” Jerome said. “I’ve tried to bring you here on several occasions. It’s a tricky thing to do, and I don’t always get the timing right. Sometimes I try too soon, sometimes I try too late. I hope it didn’t cause you too much trouble.”
     ”You terrified me out of my wits!” William fumed. “I thought I was going mad!”
     ”That seems to be a running theme with our family,” Jerome pointed out.
     ”Fair enough,” William said. “How does this place even exist?”
     ”Your parents created it by accident, when they attempted to stop the first bomb from detonating,” Jerome said. “They used my time machine to steal an hour of time and tried to keep the explosion isolated there.”
     ”It didn’t work,” William said.
     ”Not completely,” Jerome agreed. “They were nearly too late; some of the explosion escaped. Although that isn’t their fault. The time machine was never very reliable.”
     ”What about the bomb that Arcadia and I directed to the center of the Heap?”
     ”It’s temporally displaced, just like the first one,” Jerome said. “Trapped in an hour lost to time.”
     ”I have so many questions,” William said. “So many things I want to ask you.”
     ”And I’m afraid we don’t have enough time to go through them,” he said.
     ”You said this is the last time we’ll meet,” William said. “What happens to you, then? Is there anything I can do for you? Can you come back with me?”
     ”No,” Jerome said, “I have to stay. And you have to look after Arcadia.”
     ”Miss Snips?” William asked. “How do you even know her name?”
     ”You told me it. As you told me about her,” Jerome explained. “She’s the key to this whole affair, William. She’s—well, like this place, it’s complicated.”
     ”Try me.”
     ”She’s the coin flip that lands on its side. The one-in-a-million shot you can always count on. She’s probability reversed and turned inside out. A madman’s curious experiment gone terribly right.”
     ”You mean wrong?”
     ”I mean right,” Jerome said. “And I’m afraid it’s time for you to go. You can’t stay here very long, or I won’t be able to send you and Arcadia back.”
     ”When will I see you again?”
     ”Soon, soon. In the meanwhile, I have something for you—two somethings, actually,” he said. He drew a tarnished silver pocket watch out from his coat pocket; it was heavy and fitted with all manner of mechanisms, including a glass diode and several wires that dangled from its back. “This is—ah, don’t tinker with it, not now, at least. It’s very dangerous.”
     William took the watch, peering down at it. “What is it?”
     ”The time machine.”
     William looked up at Jerome with a raised eyebrow. “…really?”
     ”Yes. But it doesn’t work. Well, sometimes it does. But never in the way it’s supposed to,” Jerome said, sighing. “I never quite figured out the bloody thing.”
     ”What am I supposed to do with it?”
     ”Use it.”
     ”But you said not to—”
     ”You’ll know when,” Jerome said. “Just hold on to it. You’ll need it.”
     ”You said you had something else for me,” William said.
     ”Yes. A message,” Jerome replied. “From you. In the future.”
     ”What was it?” William asked. The world around him was beginning to shift again; the lethargic dance of the glaciers slowed to an halt as color began to drain from everything around him. In front of him, Jerome was smiling. He said:
     ”Your parents survived.”
     Once again, the world unraveled.

     ”William!”
     William Daffodil opened his eyes.
     Snips was crouched over him, her eyes dark with concern. He sat up, prompting her to roll back in a crouch besides him; they had landed somewhere in the Heap.
     ”Everything went mad back there,” Snips said. “For a moment, you disappeared, and I was falling. Then, out of no where, I blacked out and woke up here. With you.”
     William opened his fist. In it was the watch his grandfather had given him.
     ”Are you all right, William?”
     William placed the watch in his pocket, struggling to his feet. “Yes, actually. I think that I am.”

     The little boy had stashed himself into a far off corner of the boarding school, far away from the prying eyes of his peers. He nursed his bloody nose in secret, doing his best to suppress the sniffles that fought to swell up into his throat.
     When the girl appeared, she gave him a terrible start; the girl’s dormitory was kept separate from the boy’s dormitory, and he wondered at once how she had managed to sneak past the instructors. She wore a ferocious scowl and a fresh black eye, along with the school’s drab uniform. It showed signs of having been torn and scuffed in a recent struggle.
     ”Here,” she growled, shoving the book back into his arms; it was the small story book that the other boys had violently taken from him. He looked down to it, then back up to her, trying to figure out what had happened.
     ”Um—”
     ”It’s yours, isn’t it?” she said.
     William nodded.
     ”Then take it,” she said, pressing it against his palms. At last, he did as she said, accepting the book up and pulling it up against his chest.
     The girl sank down next to him, leaning against the wall; William didn’t know what to say. He had never talked to girls before, never mind one like this. He struggled for something meaningful, but all that he managed to blurt out was the first thought in his head.
     ”Uh, so, what’s your favorite color?”
     ”Green,” she said without thinking, as if she had been expecting the question all along.
     He hesitated, then opened his mouth to say something else,
but she cut him off.
     ”My father used to read me that book,” she said. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, right?”
     William nodded again.
     ”I like it,” she said, and then she added: “I heard your parents died a week ago. I’m sorry. I’m running away to find my father in the city. Do you want to come with me?”
     William blinked, at a loss for how to respond. “I’m—I’m sorry?”
     ”Yes or no,” she said, clearly agitated and wanting an answer. “I’m leaving tonight, so I can’t wait around, okay?”
     ”I—I don’t know,” William said. “Why are you running away?”
     ”Because I want to see my father again,” she said. “Because I haven’t seen him since I was a little girl. Are you
Arcadia and William meet as children.
coming or not?”
     ”I can’t,” William said. “My grandmother will come for me, soon; I’m sure of it.”
     ”Suit yourself,” she said, and then she rose back up to her feet. “My father’s a very rich and important person, so when I find him, I’m sure we can come back to adopt you.”
     William watched as she walked off, then turned back to his book. The very next day, the girl was gone; from then on, he could not help but secretly wish he had told her yes.

CHAPTER 29: IN WHICH CALCULATION ENGINES STALL, OUR TITULAR PROTAGONIST PERFORMS A DARING FEAT, AND MISS PRIMROSE FACES A MOST DAUNTING FOE

     Those few denizens of Aberwick who bothered to look skyward were greeted by a perplexing sight—a horde of courier pigeons were swooping down across the city, each one with their own spiked helmet and several medals pasted to their chests. Each flew through the cityscape, fluttering past pipes and railways as they carried their messages in small cigarette-shaped packages fastened to their legs.
     When the first pigeon arrived, it was met with a combination of surprise and disbelief—the pigeon coop at the Eastern Crown Bank hadn’t been used for over a year. But the employee who noticed the scarred little soldier tapping at the doorway recognized the seal as that of Jacob Watts—a highly respected and valued client. The message was rushed to the front desk immediately, and despite the rather odd nature of the requested account, it was entered into the engine without delay.
     And so this scenario was repeated, again and again.

     Snips rolled her shoulders back with a wretched pop; she closed her eyes and wriggled about like a snake working to escape from its skin.
     She lurched back and forth, swinging herself over the trapdoor below her; every twist of her body threw her closer to its edge as she began to ease herself out of the last of her bindings.
     When she finally managed to slip the straitjacket off over her head, she had enough momentum to fling it beyond the trap door and to the side of the room. By then, it was a simple matter to reach up and untie the bindings around her ankles, swinging her way over the trap and down to the train’s carpet. She grimaced as she slammed each shoulder against the wall in turn, popping the joints back into their sockets.
     Just as she was rubbing the soreness out of one shoulder, the door to the compartment burst open.
     Mr. Tongue and Mr. Cheek rushed in, looking as if they had just seen a ghost. Both were sporting an array of fresh bruises, their suits ragged and torn; they scrambled across the floor towards Snips, throwing terrified glances back over their shoulders.
     ”Hey, you two,” Snips began. “You don’t know where Mr. Peabody is, do you?”
     ”Quickly,” Mr. Cheek snarled. “What are your bleedin’ views on women’s suffrage?”
     ”Huh? You mean the right to vote?” Snips blinked. “What do I care? I’m a felon. I can’t vote.”
     ”Bleedin’ perfect,” Mr. Cheek said with a grin. He and his companion moved with a newfound confidence, stepping forward to where Snips had been dangling.
     Snips reached forward to one of the lockers besides her and plucked out a packed parachute. She threw it to Mr. Cheek, who caught it with a bewildered blink.
     ”Hope you boys know how to share,” Snips said, before stomping down on the trap door and stepping back.

     ”Mr. Caddleberry?”
     The bank manager sighed, glaring at the secretary. “What is it? I’m busy with—”
     ”There’s a problem with the calculation engine,” she said.
     At once, all other issues were dismissed; the threat of another attack at the hands of Professor Hemlock had every bank in the city on high alert. He marched straight down into the basement, shoving his way past the engineers and accountants who were scratching their heads in puzzlement.
     The bank’s engine occupied a relatively large space; the lumbering monstrosity was nearly the size of a house, churning and rumbling as it gnawed over the bank’s equations. Mr. Caddleberry instantly scanned the dials on the front panel, eyeing the numbers as they flew past in a series of clicks. “What exactly is the problem?” He asked.
     ”There seems to be something—something wrong with one of the accounts,” one of the mathematicians said.
     ”Are we under attack?” The thought gave Mr. Caddleberry a terrible fright; he’d have to explain to the creditors why the machine was down for the second time this week. Time was money, and every moment that the calculation engine was down was money lost.
     ”Oh, God,” he said, watching the dials beginning to spin. “Is it—please tell me it isn’t dividing by zero.”
     ”No, sir,” one of the engineers said, looking quite perplexed. “It’s definitely not dividing by zero.”
     ”Thank God.”
     ”It’s multiplying by Snips.”
     ”It’s—what? What the hell is a Snips?!” Caddleberry shouted.
     ”I don’t know!”
     The machine released a sound not unlike a mechanized burp. With an exhausted and dying splutter, it locked down.

     Snips, William, and Miss Primrose met each other between compartments of the train.
     ”Miss Snips!” William cried. “You’re all right—”
     ”Mr. Peabody isn’t that way, I assume,” Snips said, hatless and somber.
     ”No, he is not,” Miss Primrose quickly agreed. “William has discovered that the banks are going to—”
     ”Collapse. I know.” Snips looked back over her shoulder to the front-most compartment. “He must be up there.”
     ”The banks are safe,” William said. “We took care of it. An equation we entered into the banks will cause the engines will shut down, but the accounts won’t be erased. All that’s left is to retrieve Mr. Peabody.”
     ”All right. I’ll handle it, then. I don’t need anyone slowing me down,” Snips replied, turning toward the compartment.
     ”Miss Snips—” William began.
     Steam burst from every side of the train at once. The roof above the front-most compartment snapped off, flying away and tumbling down to the city below. A cloth bag began to swell up over it, growing like a pulsing blister—Miss Primrose and William balked.
     ”What on earth—” Miss Primrose began.
     ”An airship!” William cried with surprise. “It’s turning into an airship!”
     ”No,” Snips hissed, springing forward and rushing toward the back-end of the compartment.
     The cloth bag atop the compartment was growing by leaps and bounds; already, it eclipsed the size of the carriage below it. The wheels beneath the compartment groaned as they detached with a clang, the airship abandoning its own floor; it began to float slowly upwards, curving away from the rails.
     ”No!” Snips roared, lunging up in an attempt to catch the edge of the floating airship. William jogged up next to her.
     They were standing on the front compartment’s abandoned floor, the city rushing past them on all sides; the sound of the wind deafened them, forcing them to shout over the noise.
     ”Miss Snips, we can’t reach him—”
     ”Give me your umbrella,” Snips said, her voice cleaving through William’s.
     ”Miss Snips—”
     ”Now,” Snips said.
     William hesitated, but complied. He pulled his umbrella out from his belt hoop, handing it over to Snips. She quickly snatched up a length of rope, fastening it about her waist; she tied the other end to the compartment’s external railing. Then, she hefted the umbrella high above her head, pointing it at the airship as it rapidly fell behind the train.
     William’s eyes widened with realization. “Miss Snips, wait—”
     ”He’s got my hat,” Snips said. “I’ll be right back.”
     She opened the umbrella and soared.

     Miss Primrose had moved to the back compartment in hopes of finding some way to stop the train; instead, she found a murderer lying in wait.
     ”Good evening, Madame,” the assassin said, slipping out of the shadows behind the compartment door with a mocking bow.
     Miss Primrose lost all her color as she turned about to face her aggressor. She knew at once her chances were slim to none; the assassin had previously demonstrated the ability to move through space like a hot buzz-saw through warm butter.
     He stepped forward, spreading his hands out apologetically. “I’m afraid I left my pistols in the front compartment,” he told her, before folding both hands into a bird, flapping his fingers like wings and whistling. “Gone, gone. So I’m going to have to do this the way God originally intended—bare handed.”
     ”You don’t say,” Miss Primrose said, stepping back.
     The assassin grinned, cracking his knuckles. “Mm.”
     Miss Primrose licked her lips, putting more distance between herself and the murderer. Her medical bag was behind her feet, stashed in the monocycle; if she could buy herself just a precious few moments, she could retrieve the pistol inside. “I see,” she said, mind racing for some plan. “But certainly, you would never stoop to harming a woman,” she said; no sooner had these words left her mouth then did she step over the bag, looping her toe through the handle and kicking it up to her hands.
     He was there in an instant. The bag was twisted from her grip as if it was a toy in the hands of a small child, followed by a savage head-butt straight to her temple. She staggered back, blinking in a daze. A trickle of blood emerged from the split above her left eyebrow.
     He tossed the bag far past her, out the shattered window. “Sorry, sweetheart. That one doesn’t work on me. I’m an equal opportunity sociopath.”
     She scrambled down to the floor for something to fend him off; her fingers coiled around a length of pipe, struggling to bring it between her and him. The assassin snickered, shaking his head.
     ”Seriously, now,” he told her. “You couldn’t take me on my worst day, lady.” His mirth slipped away, replaced by a frigid hate. “And this? Not my worst day.”
     Again, he was a blur. He flickered into existence beside her, delivering a blow to her stomach that forced her to drop the pipe and crumple over.
     ”Really,” he told her, throwing her against the wall, “you should be thanking me. I don’t discriminate; I’m a very progressive sort of monster. Men, women, children—I’ll stomp a basket full of kittens for the right price.”
     Miss Primrose wheezed; she felt his hand engulf her narrow throat. Struggling to rake in a precious shred of oxygen, she noticed something gleaming inside of his coat.
     He opened his mouth to say something else; Miss Primrose wadded up what saliva she could and spat it straight into his one remaining eye.
     ”Agh!” he cried, losing control for only an instant; only an instant is exactly how much time she needed. Miss Primrose jerked her head forward and bit at his chest, catching a hard bit of metal in her teeth. Pulling back, she thrust her knee into his stomach and shoved him as hard as she could.
     The two stumbled apart; the assassin stood in front of the shattered remnants of the window as Miss Primrose ran for the door. Her palm had just wrapped around the knob when something buried itself into the door’s surface, landing mere inches from her head.
     ”Oh,” the assassin said, standing up with a cough. “I completely forgot about my throwing knives.”
     Miss Primrose slowly turned; the assassin produced another knife, giving her a wry smile.
     ”You made a good run of it,” he told her. “Bravo.”
     Miss Primrose returned his smile with one of her own.
     ”Eh?” The assassin tilted his head. “Oh, do you have something to say? Some amusing anecdote, perhaps? Please, by all means. I’m in need of some entertainment. But keep in mind,” he added, tossing the knife from one hand to the next, “that nothing on the tip of that little tongue will stop this knife from burying itself in your heart.”
     Miss Primrose spat out the metal pin, letting it clatter to the compartment’s floor.
     The assassin blinked and looked down to his chest. Several of his explosive glass spheres were still secreted away along the lining of his coat; one of them was now missing its pin.
     He looked back up at Miss Primrose.
     ”By the way,” she said. “Has anyone ever mentioned that you look like that Von Grimskull character?”
     The assassin scowled. “Oh, do bugger off.”

CHAPTER 28: IN WHICH A DARING RESCUE IS HATCHED, RAILS ARE PROVEN UNNECESSARY, PIGEONS ARE UNLEASHED, AND MR. CHEEK MAKES A MISTAKE OF THE SECOND TYPE

     Beneath the Steamwork, scraps of heated metal smoldered.
     The scene was one of devastation. Cracked cogs and smoking gears littered the floor like the shattered remnants of broken tinker toys. Sheets of iron had been bent beneath the concussive force, twisted into gnarled shapes. A choking cloud of suffocating smoke swirled through the chamber.
     Miss Primrose stood up from beneath a pile of molten shrapnel.
     Her face was covered in soot and her clothes were charred. The sound of the explosion that had ripped through the calculation engine still rang in her ears. She reached down and rummaged in the pile next to her until she found a mop of fair hair. She tangled her fingers into it and seized William by the roots, pulling the spluttering mathematician out of the heap of ash.
     William cried out. “What happened?!”
     ”He destroyed it,” Miss Primrose said, sighing. “The villain destroyed it.”
     ”Who?!”
     ”Who was it who took Miss Snips?” she asked. “Who was it who confiscated all the bank’s paperwork?”
     ”Who else? Count Orwick,” William said, and Miss Primrose nodded. “Wait, no,” he added, frowning. “He said he worked for Count Orwick, but I never actually saw the Count. I think he called himself—Limebody? Peaman? No, it was—”
     ”Peabody,” Miss Primrose said, shocked.
     ”Ah! Yes, that’s it. It was Mr. Peabody.”
     ”It is over,” she said, slumping back against the wall in surrender. “It is all over.”
     ”I don’t understand—” William started.
     ”He outsmarted us,” she said. “All of us. Myself, Miss Snips—even Count Orwick, assuming he was not in on it from the start.”
     ”But why? Why would he want to bring all the banks crashing down? ”
     ”Who could know? Perhaps it was some villainous plan involving money,” Miss Primrose said. “Perhaps he had some scheme to extort the banks of Aberwick. Or perhaps he’s merely mad.”
     ”We need to get Miss Snips—”
     ”It does not matter,” Miss Primrose said, shaking her head. “You stated that Miss Snips was taken by Orwick’s men—she is either with them now, or—” Miss Primrose grew pale and sighed. “And if Mr. Peabody is as half as clever as he’s shown himself to be, he will be half-way out of the city by now. On top of it all, we have only a few hours before the banks come crashing down. We have lost, Mr. Daffodil.”
     ”We have to do something,” William said. “We can notify the banks—”
     ”I assume that we cannot use your pneumatic pipes in their current state,” Miss Primrose said, gesturing to the remains of the pipes; they had been fused shut by the heat of the explosion. “We could not contact more than a few before the close of business hours on foot. And without Orwick’s word, they would never believe us.”
     ”There must be something!”
     Miss Primrose slumped down. “This is not a penny dreadful, Mr. Daffodil. The clever hero does not think up a last-minute plan to save the day.”
     ”If only we had a way to get about quickly enough,” William said. “If only we had some means to move about the city fast enough to notify the banks—”
     Someone cleared their throat. William and Miss Primrose turned, finding themselves facing Dunnigan; the old janitor had just emerged from one of the doorways leading into the room, peering at the destruction with a rather perturbed expression.
     ”All right,” Dunnigan said. “First off, I ain’t cleanin’ this up.”
     ”Mr. McGee—”
     ”Second off, I sure as hell don’t know what’s goin’ on, but I ‘eard you sayin’ you need a way to get around fast, and I think I might be able to do somethin’ for you on that note,” he quickly added. “Assumin’ you don’t mind waiting here while I go fetch you an antique.”

     ”Explain this to me again,” Miss Primrose said. “Specifically, the part about why I am not terrified for my life.”
     ”It’s quite simple,” William replied, slipping into the strange contraption’s seat. “It functions on a principle of balance via motion.”
     ”It is a giant doughnut,” Miss Primrose shot back. “A giant doughnut with a steam-engine inside.” She eyed the device warily, keeping her distance.
     ”I don’t know where Mr. Dunnigan dug it up, but it seems quite serviceable,” William said. “A bit old, but the design is quite sound. I remember testing a machine built on a similar theory some time ago. Hopefully, this one works better.”
     ”Works better?” Miss Primrose asked.
     ”Well,” William began, shrugging. “It was just a small tinker toy I built when I was a little boy. It used the same principle of balance via velocity, using one wheel…”
     ”What happened to it?”
     ”Oh, it didn’t work.”
     ”I see.”
     ”And caught fire,” he added. “And then exploded. But don’t worry. This version looks far more stable.”
     Dunnigan had rolled the monocycle up from somewhere deep in the Steamwork’s storage. It sat at the Steamwork’s front entrance, still wearing a fresh layer of grit. The whole thing looked like some sort of engineering impossibility; William sat in the driver’s seat, a scarf around his neck and his goggles dangling below his throat.
     ”It is as if its creator designed it with the explicit purpose of crashing,” Miss Primrose said. “It has only one wheel. Why not three, or at least two? Did he have something against wheels?”
     ”Stop complaining,” William said. “It will work! Just get on.”
     ”But how will this stop the banks from going bottom up?”
     William held up a sheet of folded paper. “I’ve written a little something that will cause their calculation engines to choke on numbers—it isn’t a permanent solution, but it will stall the engines long enough to prevent their accounts from being wiped. However, we do have one problem.”
     ”One problem? You believe we have one problem?”
     ”Though I think this invention is fast enough to deliver this note to all of Aberwick’s banks or catch up with Count Orwick’s train, I doubt it is fast enough to do both,” William said. “I’ll drop you off along the way, and you’ll have to deliver the account exploit to as many banks as you can while I go after Miss Snips.”
     Miss Primrose frowned. “Miss Snips may not still be alive—”
     ”Maybe not. But I must try, Miss Primrose.”
     Something drew Miss Primrose’s attention skyward. The explosion that had ripped through the basement of the Steamwork had cracked open yet another hole in its roof; a shaft of sunlight spilled down atop a filthy pigeon that had fluttered in to perch atop a piece of twisted iron. Slowly, a thought began to gestate.
     ”Perhaps we can do both, Mr. Daffodil. Can we make one stop on our way to Miss Snips’ train?”
     ”If it isn’t too far,” William agreed.
     ”It is not. I will explain on the way,” she said.
     The machine rumbled to life; Miss Primrose grimaced and prepared herself for imminent destruction. But as William leaned forward over the levers, another thought occurred to her:
     ”William? How will we get anywhere if we don’t get this miniature train up on the rail?”
     William grinned. “Rails?” He reached down, pulling the goggles up over his eyes. “Where we’re going, we don’t need rails.”
     He pushed the levers forward. The monocycle’s engine gave out a shrill shriek, propelling the two of them up the ramp and out of the Steamwork.

     It was scarcely half an hour after Miss Primrose’s epiphany that she arrived at Jacob Watts’ doorstep.
     The gentleman of leisure was entertaining several of his favored pigeons when the woman stepped forward and handed him the letter. He plucked it out of her hands, opened it with a twist of his knife, listened to her rushed explanation as he perused its contents, and then assumed an expression of grim duty. He watched as she ran off to rejoin William, riding off into the distance.
     Only a minute later, he emerged from the back door of his house in full military regalia, complete with an iron spear-headed helmet.
     ”Gentlemen,” he addressed the legions of birds, arms folded neatly behind his back. “It has once again fallen upon our shoulders to serve queen and country.” He paused for emphasis, tapping his riding crop against the side of his hip; when several pigeons fluttered with impatience, he continued.
     ”The burden you have carried in the past has been heavy, and your losses high. The risks are many—there has been an unquestionable increase in feline hostilities, and hawks remain an ever-present threat. Nevertheless, the task set before you is one of utmost importance. Everything we hold dear stands in the balance.”
     ”My fellow countrymen,” he said, holding the message high over his head. “Once again, the mail must go through.”
     A hundred or more pigeons began to coo.
     ”Corporal Squawkers!” Jacob Watts cried. “Ready your men!”

     Mr. Cheek and Mr. Tongue paused in their discussion long enough to throw their eyes railward; they watched as the railway swept out beneath them, the two stalwart thugs manning the back of the train. What they saw there was odd enough to give them both meaning for pause; after all, it wasn’t every day that you saw a steam-driven monocycle riding up the rail.
     ”Ughungh.”
     ”Aye,” Mr. Cheek agreed, narrowing his one good eye. “I agree. This is a most troublesome bleedin’ development.”
     ”Ughunuhgh?”
     ”Naw, I doubt they’d be that bleedin’ stupid,” Mr. Cheek said. “How the bleedin’ hells do they figure to get on the bleedin’ train, anyway?”
     ”Ughungh.”
     ”Huh. Aye, I suppose it is a little bleedin’ strange that they haven’t slowed the bleedin’ hell down—”
     The window exploded inwards, sending a shower of glass through the room. The monocycle’s wheel shrieked across the cabin’s floor, snarling as William brought it to a screeching halt; Mr. Tongue and Mr. Cheek were sent catapulting to the far wall, cracking hard against it.
     As soon as the engine was idling, William proceeded to roar. “Oh yes! In your face, gravity! Oh, dear, I cannot believe I just did that. Did anyone see that? I hope someone saw that, because that was probably the maddest thing anyone has ever successfully done in the whole history of successful madness—”
     ”Enough,” Miss Primrose exclaimed, cutting him off. She stepped off the monocycle, still shaking. “I do hope you’ll show a bit more sense in the future, William. That was a rather foolhardy stunt to pull.”
     ”Oh, come on! Did you see what I just did?” William asked.
     ”We have company,” Miss Primrose noted.
     William turned; Mr. Tongue and Mr. Cheek now loomed over them both, eyes narrowed, freshly bruised and peppered with cuts from the spray of glass.
     ”Unguh,” Mr. Tongue said.
     ”I agree,” said Mr. Cheek, cracking his bolted neck to the side. “A bleedin’ pair of punchin’ bags. Just what we need.”
     ”Gentlemen,” Miss Primrose began. “I beg you to listen to reason. We are here to save a dear friend, and there is absolutely no need for any gratuitous displays of violence—”
     ”Ughungh!”
     ”Aye, she’s a noisy suffragette, ain’t she?” Mr. Cheek agreed.
     Miss Primrose’s expression wavered. “I beg your pardon?”
     ”My bleedin’ associate here,” Mr. Cheek explained, “Was just mentionin’ how he can’t stand loudmouth suffragettes. Such as yerself.”
     Deep beneath the layers of the brain that concern themselves with rational thought and what color tie would go best with that shirt, there exists a primordial knot of nerve endings that would be best described as a shiny button labeled ‘PANIC’. The tone Miss Primrose used drilled straight down to that button and perched atop of it with an impressive looking sledge hammer.
     ”Would you care to describe your view on woman’s suffrage in detail, sir?” she said, her voice low and dreadfully quiet.
     Sensing danger, William took a large step backward.
     ”You mean women gettin’ to vote?” Mr. Cheek asked, oblivious to the danger. “It’s th’most absurd bleedin’ notion I ever ‘eard of. Like a girl could ever make a rational bleedin’ decision—”
     Miss Primrose cracked her knuckles.

Our sale just ended; thank you to all of you who bought books. I (Matthew) will be leaving to visit my grandparents in a few hours, and so all orders between now and New Year’s will not be shipped until January, when I return.

In other news, I just want to remind everyone that we’re still selling our book for 12$ as opposed to 15$–it’s unlikely you’ll get it before Christmas if you order now, but you’ll still save a little money. We’re also still available at Amazon.com, although we don’t see the profit from sales there–but if you want to save a bit of money on shipping, it might be your best bet. Again, if you want to support us in ways that don’t impact the wallet, please feel free to review the story so far (assuming you don’t have a copy yourself!) at either Amazon.com or the Webfiction Guide. In addition, if you’ve enjoyed the story so far, please pass the word along!

CHAPTER 27: IN WHICH OUR TITULAR PROTAGONIST IS ACCUSED OF A CRIME, A BOMB IS DETONATED, AND THE MATTER OF MR. COPPER’S MURDER IS AT LAST ADDRESSED

     Shortly after stepping into the belly of the Steamwork, Snips was seized by several officers dressed in crisp, black uniforms.
     ”This is nonsense,” Snips said. “I wasn’t—”
     William poked his head out of his workshop, peering across the catwalk. Snips was there, struggling between two of the uniformed men; Mr. McGee and several other police officers were present. Dunnigan didn’t look very happy, and Snips was furious.
     ”I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about!” Snips said.
     ”She was here, last night,” Dunnigan said. “Snuck in—I didn’t think she’d actually hurt him, officers,” the janitor said, shaking his head and looking to the ground. “I thought she was, y’know, just carryin’ out a right and proper investigation-”
     ”There is no official investigation into the Steamwork,” one of the officers said.
     William climbed up out of the calculation engine, making his way to the platform. As soon as he landed, Snips recognized him; her face brightened. “William!” She said. “Tell these buffoons to unhand me—”
     ”What on earth is going on?” William asked, trying to look as stern and authoritative as he could manage. It was a rough fit, but the officers seemed to be convinced.
     ”Mr. Eddington,” Dunnigan said, turning around to face William. “They found him, last night. Sorry t’be the bearer of bad news, Mr. Daffodil, but he was murdered.”
     ”Murdered?” William said. “By whom? For what reason?”
     ”Miss Snips was the last t’see him,” Dunnigan said. “Broke in here last night.”
     ”Miss Snips was with me last night,” William said, but then he paused. He hadn’t known where Snips was before then; could she have broken into the Steamwork? “Besides, why would she kill Mr. Eddington?”
     ”We intend to find out,” one officer said. “Now, if you’ll pardon us, we need to take her back to Count Orwick’s train—”
     ”Susan? You’re taking me to Susan?” Snips asked. “Why didn’t you say so? He’ll clear this up in a jiffy.”
     ”I doubt it,” another officer said. “Seeing how his assistant’s the one who issued the arrest warrant.”
     Snips blanched, turning to William. “William, listen—”
     William frowned. “Did you break in the Steamwork, Miss Snips?”
     ”Yes, yes,” Snips said, as if that detail was trivial. “Listen, I came here to tell you—”
     ”Did you kill Mr. Eddington?”
     No sooner had the words left William’s lips than did he regret them. Though he asked the question softly, its force was sufficient to flatten Snips’ will. At first, she stiffened with shock. Then her expression faded to one of muted surrender. She sagged between the two officers, becoming no more than dead weight in their hands.
     ”No,” she said at last. “I didn’t.”
     ”I’ll fetch Miss Primrose,” William said, but Snips shook her head.
     ”Don’t bother,” she said, something hard slipping into her voice. “I can handle this myself.”
     William watched helplessly as they took her away, unsure of what to do.

     Mr. Peabody brought over a flask of sherry and two glasses on a silver tray. The Count gestured for the tray to be put on the lacquered table beside him; he absently poured himself and Mr. Peabody a pair of glasses.
     ”The matter of this investigation has been troubling me,” Orwick said.
     ”How so, sir?”
     ”The suddenness of pressure from Parliament and several others to close the case—I am still unaware from what quarter these pressures originated. There must be another player, one who I am not yet aware of,” Orwick said. “Someone with considerable clout who could convince several officials in power to oppose me.”
     ”Perhaps they merely opposed the Steamwork’s investigation on ideological grounds, sir.”
     Orwick snorted, sipping from his glass. “Only the young oppose something on ideological grounds, Mr. Peabody. The experienced know better. No, this is the result of some connection I had not foreseen—some link that I am blind to.”
     ”Perhaps Miss Snips, sir?”
     ”Perhaps,” Orwick agreed, taking another sip of sherry. “I had thought I had investigated her thoroughly, but perhaps I have yet to discover the whole picture. I—hn.”
     ”Is something wrong, sir?”
     ”Quite curious,” Orwick said, glancing down at the empty glass. “I am not usually this talkative. And I often have no difficulty feeling my legs,” he added, glancing down at his own feet. Suddenly, he found himself slipping to the floor, clambering for a grip on his way down. “I—hn. I think I require a bit of assistance, Mr. Peabody,” Orwick said, voice wavering. He looked up and was quite surprised to see his assistant stepping forward, donning what seemed to be the mask of a jackal.
     ”Having a bit of trouble, sir?” Mr. Peabody said, his voice smothered into a metallic hum. “Need a bit of help, sir? Is there something I can get you? Hm? Perhaps a clue?” He crouched besides Orwick.
     ”You,” Orwick said, his voice dropping off into a whisper. “Poison.”
     ”Oh, quite clever. Did you just figure that out? Very good, sir,” Mr. Peabody said.
     ”Why,” Orwick groaned.
     ”Because the system you have maintained for so long with your clever bag of tricks is a system doomed to failure, Count Orwick. Because, rather than evolve, it is sometimes better for creatures such as yourself to go extinct. And because in an era such as ours, one must occasionally play the villain to remain a gentleman.”
     Orwick licked his lips. “Who?” he croaked.
     ”Who do you think? I have served you faithfully for years—and yet all this time I have been in the service of another. Who can inspire that sort of dedication, that level of loyalty? Who possesses that much foresight? Who else but the Society’s true master, Orwick?” Mr. Peabody lowered his face down to the Count’s ear.
     ”Who else but Hemlock?”
     Orwick groaned. Mr. Peabody straightened his coat, stood up, and left the Count to die.

     Left confused and perplexed, William returned to the only thing that ever made sense—his work. He was buried elbow deep in purring machinery; a labyrinth of gears and cogs surrounded him on all sides. He sat in a well-cushioned chair that swiveled with his every move, a brass periscope neatly fitted over his eyes. Every so often, he violently heaved his body to the left or right—twisting the entirety of the wheelhouse’s clockwork innards with him, swiveling around with the grace of a suspended gyroscope. His fists were clenched around a set of levers, squeezing and tugging them intermittently.
     The entire contraption was suspended within the heart of the calculation engine, and served as a way to directly manipulate and observe the furious mathematics that rumbled within it. William had been running the machine and observing its various results by hand; when he at last completed the final calculations, there was a terrible sound.
     The engine snarled as gears grinded backwards. Sparks flew; belts snapped. A cog broke free with a metal twang, flying over another engineer’s head and smashing into a wall. Daffodil seized the panic switch and threw it, bringing the entire machine to a growling halt.
     William blinked owlishly, tugging his goggles down around his neck. He searched the dozen or more dials that lay in front of him—moments ago, they had been purring with calculations, displaying an array of values; now all of them had reset back to zero.
     ”My God,” he whispered.
     ”Mr. Daffodil!” A female’s voice called for him over the din of noise. Briefly, he thought it was Snips; he found himself popping out of the wheelhouse with a speed that surprised even himself. When he saw it was Miss Primrose, he was somewhat crestfallen.
     ”Oh, hullo,” he said. “Ah, oh, yes—I was going to go fetch you.” William added. “Miss Snips has been arrested. Mr. Eddington was killed last night.”
     ”He—he was?” Miss Primrose grew pale. “You don’t think—”
     ”No,” William said, and he felt a pang of regret spear through him. Though Snips was certainly stubborn, she was far from a cold-blooded killer. “No, I think that something else is afoot. But we have another concern. I have made a terrible discovery.”
     ”More terrible than the recent discovery of your employer’s demise?”
     ”The engine,” William said. “My calculation engine. It just divided by zero.”
     Miss Primrose gave him a blank stare. William sighed.
     ”We’ve completed entering all the data from all the banks in Aberwick into the engine from a few days prior,” William explained. “We don’t have all the information in it yet, but we have enough for a dry run, so I ran all of the calculations through it—to the end of today’s business hours. And it divided by zero. Every account,” he added. “At every bank.”
     ”I do not understand. What is the significance?”
     ”If these calculations are correct, every bank engine in Aberwick except for this one is due to fail today at the close of business,” William said. “All of them are going to divide by zero. All of them are carrying mathematical time-bombs, set to go off today.”
     ”How is that even possible?”
     ”I do not know,” William said.
     ”Well,” Miss Primrose said, moving to give William a hand as he stepped off the deck of the engine. “The banks still have hard copies of all their data, do they not? Certainly, they can merely restore all the information they’ll lose.”
     ”The hard copies were kept here, for security reasons,” William said. “At Mr. Eddington’s insistence. They were confiscated only a minutes ago by Orwick’s men, shortly after they had taken Miss Snips away. As evidence,” William added, frowning in thought.
     ”Evidence? Why would bank documents be considered evidence?”
     ”I do not know,” William said. “However—when all of the banks of Aberwick collapse at the end of today’s business, the Steamwork’s engine will remain the only available source of bank data.”
     ”How fortunate that you have a pipe network connecting you to every bank in the city,” Miss Primrose pointed out.
     ”Quite fortunate,” William agreed, and then he paused. “Miss Primrose? Is something wrong?”
     The woman had grown quite pale. When she spoke, her voice was trembling: “A thought has just occurred to me, Mr. Daffodil.”
     ”Yes?”
     ”All of the banks in Aberwick are set to fail today at the end of business hours, yes?”
     ”Yes, Miss Primrose.”
     ”And all of the hard copies of their data have been secreted away by a dubious government bureaucrat,” she added, the quaver growing more pronounced.
     ”Er, yes,” William said. “I don’t quite see what you’re getting at—”
     ”And this engine—the engine we are now standing before—remains the only source of reliable financial information in all of Aberwick,” Miss Primrose added.
     ”Yes, I suppose you are correct—”
     She seized William by the arm, pulling him towards the exit. “RUN!”

     The silver pocket watch steadily ticked, slicing time into equal increments. The assassin flipped it closed with a snap and leaned back in his chair, admiring the sight of the city through the curved glass that capped the entire front-end of the luxury train.
     He glanced over to Snips. The girl was giving him a rather sullen look, hanging upside down from the ceiling—having heard a great deal concerning her abilities to escape constraints, Mr. Peabody had seen to binding her in a straitjacket and rope, as well as a gag. She resembled a cocoon with only her head poking out from the bottom. On top of this, she had been placed directly above a trap door set to trigger should so much as a mosquito’s whisker touch it.
     ”I want you to know,” he told her, “that this isn’t about the duck. Or the eye.”
     ”Mmph.”
     The assassin drew one of his throwing knives out of his coat, tapping the blade’s tip against eyepatch that now covered the permanently damaged organ. “Really, all things being equal, I actually like you, Arcadia. I think that, if we had met under different circumstances, we’d get along smashingly.”
     Snips glared.
     The assassin rose to his feet. “When you kill people for a living, you get to be pretty good at getting into a fellow’s head. Not that I’ve got you figured, oh no,” he quickly added. “But I can sniff out a thing or two about you.”
     ”Most people,” he continued, “think that peace and civility are the standard operating procedure. To them, barbarism is an aberration. People like me—people like you—there’s something ‘wrong’ with us.” The knife fluttered from one hand to the other as he approached.
     ”But we know better, don’t we? Civilization is the aberration; peace is the odd man out. We both know the distance between a kind word and a knife in your gut,” he said, standing close to her now. “We do what we’ve got to do so we can eat.” The assassin suddenly grinned. “And you know what, Arcadia? I eat very well.”
     ”Mr. Montgomery,” Mr. Peabody interrupted. “Your services are no longer needed here.”
     The assassin straightened as Peabody entered the room. He stepped back in deference, wearing a quick scowl. “I‘m busy,” he said.
     ”Your business is not my concern,” Mr. Peabody said. “Let us not forget that you’ve failed on your mission. You remain under my payroll by the grace of my employer alone.”
     ”Oh, come off it. It’s not like she turned out to be an issue anyway. And besides, you decided you didn’t want me to off her—”
     ”Regardless, you were unaware of this, and failed,” Mr. Peabody responded. “Double-check the length of the train. Ensure that there are no stowaways. From this point on, we will not take on so much as a molecule of unnecessary risk.”
     The assassin scoffed, but obeyed. As he slipped away, Mr. Peabody sighed and sat down besides Snips.
     ”You must understand,” he said, words heavy with regret. “It was never my desire to see anyone hurt.”
     ”Mmph.”
     ”Of course, I have killed. Mr. Copper was not the first, and he has certainly not been the last,” Mr. Peabody explained. “Mr. Eddington became a liability. As did Count Orwick himself.”
     ”Mmphmph.”
     ”Yes, Miss Snips. You have been a particularly difficult liability,” Mr. Peabody said, folding his arms over his chest. “Nevertheless, I am currently under an agreement which prevents me from killing you.”
     ”Mmph.”
     ”If I had known that you were Nigel Arcanum’s daughter, I certainly would not have sent a mere assassin after you. I would have dealt with you personally.”
     ”Mmnphmph.”
     ”Do you know why the Society was originally founded, Miss Snips? I assume you must, being the daughter of one of its most prestigious members.” Mr. Peabody stood, walking towards Snips. “You must understand our goal, our burden. We are not monsters, Arcadia. We only wish to save you from yourselves.” He removed the gag.
     Snips instantly spat at him.
     It caught Mr. Peabody between the eyes. He grimaced, withdrawing a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing at it carefully. “I suppose,” he admitted, “that I should have expected that.”
     ”Hat,” Snips snarled.
     ”Oh, yes. Your precious hat.” Mr. Peabody turned and walked towards his seat, where the hat lay. “I think I’ll keep it. A token of our meeting.”
     ”Fine. Your funeral,” Snips said. “Tell me why you killed him.”
     ”Who? I’ve killed so many,” Mr. Peabody said. “You’ll have to be specific.”
     ”Copper,” Snips said. “Why did you kill Copper?”
     ”I sent Mr. Montgomery after him because he obstinately refused to allow Professor Daffodil’s technology to be suppressed by the Steamwork. He thought it important enough to seek outside investment. He was an idealist; he either would not or could not understand the danger that the technology posed.”
     ”What danger? Banks can send other banks messages, big deal.”
     ”Financial institutions would only be the beginning. In time, his ‘telegraph’ would spread across borders and even oceans—reducing the distance between all countries of the earth.”
     ”So?”
     Mr. Peabody smiled. It was a grim and depressed thing, absent of all pleasure. “What do you think would happen, Miss Snips? What would happen the moment the nations of the world could speak with one another? Do you think all our differences and quibbles would suddenly vanish?”
     Snips opened her mouth to reply, but quickly closed it. She knew the answer Daffodil would probably give; some long-winded speech concerning how it would eventually bring the world together and could only ultimately be a good thing. But Snips knew better.
     ”No. People would just get to argue faster,” Snips said. “And louder.”
     Mr. Peabody’s smile grew. “Indeed. Imagine, if you will, a world where war can be declared in an instant—troops deployed on no more than a whimsical tantrum. Imagine a world where the leaders of nations may talk immediately and without delay—and rediscover just how much it is they loathe one another.”
     ”Yet another step toward a great and terrible war,” Snips said.
     ”A war to end all others,” he agreed.
     ”Is that why you let Eddington keep all the technology under the Steamwork? Because he was suppressing it? Because it slowed down progress?”
     ”Yes. Mr. Eddington proved quite sufficient for this task, although I’m afraid his usefulness is now at an end. The poor fool thought we intended to profit by collapsing every engine but his own; he remained oblivious to our true intentions until the very end. We’ve found another means to prevent the coming of the Great War,” Mr. Peabody said.
     Snips narrowed her eyes. “What have you done?”
     ”We have refined our approach, Miss Snips. Iron and steel may be what governs the present, but in the future it will be mathematics that will make and break nations,” Mr. Peabody said. “And we intend to break this one.”
     ”But Hemlock’s equations were annoying, not dangerous,” Snips said. “Unless—”
     ”Your assignment to this case forced my hand, Miss Snips. I realized that there was a chance, however small, that you could unearth my plot. Orwick was a dinosaur, but he was brilliant nevertheless; he foresaw your potential success. It is why I sought your demise and consigned both he and my other associates to the dustbins of history—my plan to topple Aberwick’s banks had to be quickened.”
     ”But you can’t topple a bank in a few days,” Snips said. “…can you?”
     ”Each of my equations that Mr. Eddington so helpfully inserted inside of the banks was part of a grander plot which I intended to unleash in the distant future,” Mr. Peabody explained. “However, when I realized that I could be discovered, I merely hastened my pace. My associates inserted ‘trigger’ account exploits into each of Aberwick’s six banks, activating my mathematical time-bombs. By the end of Aberwick’s business hours, each and every bank account will be reset to zero.”
     Snips stared. “You can’t be serious. Aberwick is the financial capital of the Isle, Mr. Peabody. If you bring that down…”
     ”Oh, yes. It will bring about a financial crisis of unheard proportions,” Mr. Peabody agreed. “And it will buy the Society a decade—perhaps more—to prepare our plans to prevent the war.”
     ”Governments will collapse. Businesses will fail. People will starve,” Snips said, barely able to contain her ire.
     ”All for the greater good, Miss Snips. All to prevent a cataclysm of unspeakable proportions.”
     Snips grew quiet and morose. Thinking that he had subdued her, Mr. Peabody rose to leave; suddenly, Snips spoke. Her voice had a quiet quality of command to it that gave him pause despite the fact that she was well beyond any possibility of escape.
     ”Mr. Peabody?”
     ”Yes, Miss Snips?”
     ”I want you to know something. I want you to know that I’m going to escape. And I’m going to find you.” Snips clenched her teeth. “And then? I’m going to take my hat back.”
     ”I’m sure,” Mr. Peabody said, laughing. He picked her hat up, setting it on his head. “I’ll even keep it warm for you.”
     He left Snips to hang.

CHAPTER 26: IN WHICH BREAKFAST IS HAD AND EMOTIONS RUN HIGH

     When Snips finally awoke, she was surprised to find herself in a rather comfortable bed, stashed away in Mr. Watts’ manor house. She could tell it was Mr. Watts’ manor house because the far wall was missing—instead, she had a lovely view of the distant trees and a sweeping waterfall that flowed down and splashed across the edge where the floor ended.
     She blinked groggily and moved to sit up; at once, a blossoming flare of pain erupted in her left side. Deciding to take her body’s advice, she dropped back into bed and tried to piece together all that had happened.
     Before she got very far, she discovered she was not alone.
     ”Good morning, Miss Snips,” Miss Primrose announced, stepping into the room. She was dressed in a fresh gown, as conservative as ever. However, a new bandage was attached to her forehead and her right arm was in a sling. “I trust you are doing well?”
     ”Hat,” Snips croaked.
     ”Oh, yes. I forgot,” Miss Primrose said, reaching to the front of the bed. Snips’ favored hat sat on top of a bedpost; she quickly nudged it over. Snips snatched it up greedily and shoved it on her head.
     ”What happened?” Snips asked, finding her voice was rough from lack of practice. “How long was I out?”
     ”Only for the rest of the night,” Miss Primrose explained. “You’ve suffered a few mild injuries, nothing too grievous. Apparently, you had a mild concussion.”
     ”William—” She began. “There was something on his chest. I can’t recall the details, but—is he all right?”
     ”He is,” Miss Primrose said, nodding. “It’s actually quite an amazing phenomenon, Miss Snips. His heart is a machine.”
     ”Figures,” Snips said, and then she laughed, looking down at herself. Her previous attire was long gone; in its place was one of Miss Primrose’s ivory nightgowns. Snips glared furiously as she drew the covers up over it. “Uh, do you have my old clothes?”
     ”Yes, but they are in a wretched state at the moment,” Miss Primrose said. “At the very least, I insist that you allow them to be properly cleaned before wearing them once more.”
     ”Where is William?”
     ”Downstairs. But please, Miss Snips. Rest. You’ve been under considerable strain,” she said.
     Snips closed her eyes, laying back against the pillow. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you what I found out last night—”
     ”Neither did I,” Miss Primrose said, looking down at the floor.
     ”Mr. Eddington didn’t kill Copper—”
     ”Count Orwick has closed the case—”
     Both spoke simultaneously; both gave the other a start. When they had calmed down a bit, they explained each other’s discoveries in turn; Miss Primrose’s realization that Orwick wanted them to continue the case in an unofficial capacity, and Snips’ discovery that Eddington was not responsible, but another party was—controlling Mr. Eddington for unknown reasons.
     ”This man in the jackal mask you mentioned,” Miss Primrose said. “Do you know him?”
     ”No,” Snips replied begrudgingly. “But I know the fellows he works for.”
     ”Who?”
     ”The same ones who probably gave William his mechanical heart,” Snips said. “The Society of Distinguished Gentlemen.”
     ”It sounds like some sort of polite book club,” Miss Primrose said.
     ”In a way, that’s what it is,” Snips said. “But I can assure you, their intentions are anything but polite. Look, I need to speak to William. There are some very important things he needs to know.”
     ”Very well,” Miss Primrose said.

     William was enjoying breakfast with Jacob near the docks; although they were immersed in conversation, they both quieted down when Snips limped her way out and towards William. Jacob suddenly excused himself (“A certain matter concerning a certain private who will remain unnamed,” he explained), leaving the two alone.
     Snips sat down across from William. William cleared his throat and studied his half-eaten plate of eggs.
     ”Hey,” Snips said, flustered.
     William looked up. Arcadia was wearing her patchwork hat and a nightgown; somehow, the ensemble managed to make even her look vulnerable. Some long forgotten memory tugged at the corner of his mind, but he dismissed it. “Good morning.”
     ”Morning,” Snips said, looking down.
     ”Thank you for saving my life.”
     ”Uh, no problem,” she said, still peering down at her feet. “William?”
     ”Hm?”
     ”Can I tell you something—something personal?”
     ”Certainly.”
     Snips looked up, meeting William’s eyes with her own. “When I was a little girl, I ran away from home. Stupid reasons. I wanted to find my father. I wanted to make it on my own. Kid stuff like that,” she said. “After I found him, I ended up on the streets.”
     ”I understand,” William said.
     ”No, you don’t,” Snips replied. “You think you do, but you don’t. A guy like you? The hardest decision you’ve ever had to make was probably whether to have your eggs fried or poached. Me, I’ve spent most of my adult life making decisions like whether it’s worth bashing a fellow’s skull in to avoid getting locked up. You get what I’m saying?”
     ”No,” William said. “I don’t.”
     ”I’m not a nice person, William. Oh, I can act the part,” she said, “but that’s just when the situation lets me. When the decisions are easy. Like, right now, if I wanted to have one of those strips of bacon there—”
     ”Would you like one?” William asked, holding the plate up.
     Snips sighed. “That’s what I’m talking about. All I’ve got to do is ask, and hey, food. But put me in a situation where eating means breaking somebody’s nose? And I’ll do that too. I just don’t want you to get the wrong impression about me, alright? Because you’ve seen me when I don’t have to get nasty, and you might start to think I’m a nice, pleasant sort of person—”
     ”I don’t think you’re a nice, pleasant sort of person,” William said.
     Snips eyed him critically. William smiled meekly.
     ”I mean, I like you, but I don’t like you because you seem to be pleasant,” William continued. “I don’t know what you’ve done in your past, but I also know that I do not care. Perhaps that makes me irresponsible and selfish? I do not know. But, for some reason, I feel as if I can trust you. You’ve given me no reason to believe otherwise.”
     ”That’s stupid,” Snips said. “You realize how easy I could scam you? Maybe this is all a con.”
     ”Pretend to be good long enough and you may one day succeed in fooling even yourself.”
     Snips shook her head. “That’s silly,” she said, but she didn’t push the point. Instead, she dropped her eyes down to his chest. “I see you’re doing well enough. Not broken, anyway?”
     ”No, not at all,” William said. “It’s functioning quite well.”
     ”Good,” she said. “I mean, good that it’s still working. Um, so. Do you know where you got it?”
     ”The heart?” William asked. “My father, I believe, although I never was told the full story; only that my original heart was too weak to carry me.”
     ”William, there are so many things I need to tell you,” Snips said. “I know things about him—Professor Daffodil. I didn’t say anything before, because I was so thrown off when you mentioned he was your father, and I wasn’t sure about you or what you wanted, but—”
     William smiled, reaching out to touch the back of Snips’ hand. “It’s all right. I already know a little bit, at least.”
     Snips stiffened with surprise. “You—you do?”
     ”Yes. I know that he worked with your father.”
     ”Wait, what? How do you know that?”
     ”Your father told me.”
     Snips drew her arm away with a snap. “He what?”
     William slid back defensively. “I went to him, yesterday morning. I had seen a copy of my umbrella there, among his trinkets on the shelf, and I wanted to know—”
     Snips’ voice dropped to a low and forceful hiss. “You spoke to my father? You spoke to him alone?”
     ”Well, yes, you were gone, and I wanted to know more about—”
     Snips’ arm flew forward with a strength that William didn’t even realize she had. At once, she had seized him by the collar and dragged him halfway across the table; fine china tumbled to the dock and clattered along the planks. “Do you have any idea what you did? How much danger you put yourself in? Do you have any concept of who my father is, or what he’s capable of? The things he’s done?”
     William was momentarily cowed by the fierce show of violence; but a fiery indignation flourished in his eyes. “How on earth am I supposed to know anything about him? You didn’t even tell me who he was. Besides, he hardly seems like a monster—”
     ”Don’t you dare think of defending him. Not even for an instant,” Snips snarled, hurling him back to his chair. William nearly toppled. Snips rose over the table, slamming both hands down atop it. For a moment, she resembled the dragons he had admired in tapestries of old as a boy; William had a notion that streams of smoke would swirl out of her nostrils and she would incinerate him in a blast of flame. “If you knew a fraction of what I did about him—”
     William scurried up to his feet. “What? Does he secretly devour babies by moonlight? I imagine someone has to bring them to him and mash them up for his dinner, seeing how he’s essentially a mummy now,” William snapped back. “If this bothers you so much, then why don’t you just tell me the truth instead of shouting at me and treating me like a child?”
     ”Because you are a child,” Snips growled. “You run around and thrust your head into danger at every opportunity. If you’re not trying to put out fires, you’re getting yourself kidnapped or trying to play hero. What the hell were you even thinking back there, grabbing that gun like that? That assassin could have torn you in two by looking at you funny.”
     Rather than back down, William roused himself up and slapped his palms on the table right in front of Snips’. “The same thing you were thinking, Miss Snips. I wanted to help.”
     ”And all you managed to do was nearly get me shot,” Snips fired back.
     William stiffened at that; something about the mathematician seemed to change. Rather than reply, he reached for his hat and umbrella, donning both as he walked off the deck.
     Rather than feeling triumphant, Snips deflated to her chair. She watched as William left, then stewed over the remains of his breakfast.
     ”Bloody hell’s bells,” she said, sinking her head into her hands.
     It was not long before Miss Primrose emerged from the house to join Snips, looking about for William.
     ”Where did Mr. Daffodil go?” she said.
     ”Away,” Snips said, huffing out a sigh. “Miss Primrose, can I ask you something?”
     ”Hm?”
     ”What do you know about men?”
     ”Only that they are monstrous and inscrutable creatures, best avoided at every opportunity,” Miss Primrose said.
     ”I see,” Snips said.
     Miss Primrose paused, glancing back over her shoulder towards the distant figure of Jacob Watts. He had extended both of his hands, and was sporting a legion of pigeons on either arm; he seemed to be lecturing them all on the proper conduct of an officer. “Actually,” she said, “I am being somewhat unfair.”
     ”Eh?”
     ”Mr. Watts has always been especially kind, if not necessarily sane,” Miss Primrose said. “He took me in and sheltered me when there was absolutely no need to do so, and has always sought to do right for me. In fact, beyond his penchant for madness, I have yet to see a negative quality manifested in the man,” she added, before looking back to Snips. “Kind-hearted people are difficult to find. But they do exist.”
     Snips sat up. “Hm,” she said, thinking.
     ”So,” Miss Primrose said, changing the subject. “What do we do now? The case is closed, our primary suspect is no longer one, and our only lead is an odd sort of gentleman’s club.”
     ”Now? Now, we solve the case,” Snips said, and then she stood. “But first, I’ve got to go try something different.”
     ”Something different, Miss Snips?”
     ”Telling the truth,” Snips said, walking on after William.
     She hadn’t gotten three steps before Miss Primrose cleared her throat. “You might consider attempting to tell the truth in something other than a night gown.”
     ”Oh,” Snips said, suddenly looking down at herself. “Right.”